Variant Showcase: Ant-Man
Ants!
Ants!
A N T-M A N
Wow, that was weird. Anyway!
With the Avengers vs. X-Men season underway, I thought it’d be a great time to inaugurate the second entry in the My Top 3 Variants series. And, with tensions this high, the only responsible thing to do is pick sides, baby!
So we’re kicking it off with the Avengers: the cream of the crop, the mightiest heroes, the shockingly overstaffed super team. (You could throw a dart blindfolded at a list and probably hit someone who’s been on the Avengers). Now, with all the eyes on incoming big new names, it’s easy to overlook the little guy— and so I wanted to kick it off not only with an Avenger but an OG, an underdog, the littlest guy of all—
You get the gist. Ant-Man! Who also happens to be tangentially relevant because he got buffed a little bit ago— how’s that for relevance?
And so, without further ado, here are My Top 3 Ant-Man Variants (And 3 More That Aren’t Here Yet)!
Part 1: The Top 3
MCU Ant-Man
Original Cover: Ant Man (2015) #1 (Movie Variant)
Artist: Andy Park
As promised, I do like my top 3 this time. Scott Lang’s Ant-Man, played by Paul Rudd in the MCU, has cemented him as the definitive Ant-Man for many folks, and for good reason! It’s a charming take on the character, with a lot of hapless humor and great visual style.
This variant calls forward that style: while Second Dinner has mentioned that celebrity likenesses are tricky, the head-to-toe MCU Ant-Man suit has no such qualms. And we’re better off for it: the original Ant-Man movie’s suit is, no joke, one of my favorite designs in the MCU. There’s a great tactile, retro quality to the leather and the tubing, and the helmet is just perfect. The variant here captures all of that and, on top of that, has the MCU’s crispy take on the visual language of shrinking: a great translation from comic styling to Hollywood photorealism and a great complement to Snap’s truly terrific VFX for our favorite shrinking man.
Dan Hipp Ant-Man
Original Cover: Marvel Snap Commission!
Artist: Dan Hipp
Wherever I’m ranking variants, Dan Hipp will never be far from the conversation; sorry, Hipp haters! Not only is he drawing direct inspiration from that same MCU suit I love so much, but he’s subtly calling forward one of the cooler scenes from the movie— Scott’s first shrinking adventure, starting in a bathtub deluge.
Now, Ant-Man’s powers invite plenty of visual fun to be had with big-small objects and multiple variants that lean on that— and while this Hipp at a glance seems less specific, there’s something deceptively recognizable about Scott running from a small amount of water. The droplets and size of the water are just right, and the motion makes the piece possibly Ant-Man’s most dynamic variant (save for, actually, his base art). And, of course, Hipp’s greatest strengths are at play: his color, style, and ability to condense a lot of character in a single frame.
Baby Ant-Man
Original Cover: Ant-Man (2015) #1 (Young Variant)
Artist: Skottie Young
Skottie Young’s Baby variant covers are a modern staple in comics, and the same holds true in Snap! His work is prolific, and it often feels like that funny kid in the back of the classroom. I’ve heard his style likened to newspaper comics like Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes, which I think is an apt comparison. There’s a certain juvenile energy to it that goes beyond just depicting your favorite heroes as li’l menaces. This Ant-Man is a great example: the simple gag of depicting him under a magnifying glass with a tiny big old grin works perfectly, and I’m always a sucker for seeing a ‘to scale’ Ant-Man depicted on the page. It’s peak shrinking comedy.
There are some slight points off for the edits made in translation: I don’t love the switch to blue, and while I think the changes to the cover’s composition were necessary to make it fit the card template, I think sizing up the tiny Ant-Man is a little inelegant and shows a lack of detail at a size they weren’t meant to be seen (sort of like when you drag-enlarge a tiny image in Photoshop). We also miss some of the gag without his tiny speech bubble! But maybe that’s splitting Ant-Man size hairs.
Honorable Mention: Base Art Ant-Man
Original Cover: Marvel Snap Commission!
Artist: Eduard Petrovich
Colors: Ryan Kinnaird
I mentioned it earlier— I think Ant-Man’s base art is his most dynamic! When I started with Snap, I consciously chased splits on the Ant-Man base art because I thought it looked great. It’s got the nod to his size in the background (a nebulous but recognizable desk), and it’s got the shrinking effect, but mostly, it’s got a tight pose that really helps our pint-sized hero pop off the page.
While Kinnaird’s coloring helps cement the piece as part of Snap’s base set, Eduard Petrovich is the culprit behind this kinetic energy: He’s only worked on a couple of base cards (Thanos being the other), but his work elsewhere in comics boasts the same dynamism—we’ll even see a couple of his delightful Kamala covers at some point down the line.
Part 2: The Aren’t Here Yet
Ant-Man Vice
Original Cover: Ant-Man (2015) #4
Artist: Mark Brooks
I want to gush a little, independent of the variant talk. This 2015 series was great: Nick Spencer, Ramon Rosanas, Jordan Boyd, and the rest of the team behind this book turned what could have been a by-the-numbers movie synergy tie-in into some of the best Scott Lang in modern memory.
The other reason I bring it up is that multiple variants for Ant-Man we have in the game are existing covers from this series, which makes sense considering how long it ran for a relatively low-profile character. And while the rest have been variants, the main covers for the series are A1 as well!
Mark Brooks’ lush, stylish color and lighting sensibilities are matched by his eye for composition. You need look no further than this Miami Vice homage featuring Scott and his then-employee Grizzly. They’ve got the Vice drip, the neon, and the inherent absurdity of a man in a bear costume in a suit and Scott inexplicably still wearing his helmet. And while the cover directly references the events of the comic (something that doesn’t happen as often as you think), with zero context, this cover works just as well… if not better.
In The Shadow of The Ant-Man
Original Cover: The Astonishing Ant-Man (2015) #5
Artist: Michael Cho
We’ve got another pull from the same series here; even if it was retitled a different series, it’s actually from the same creative team. You can thank Secret Wars reboots galore for that. But it’s worth digging into: there’s a wealth of great Ant-Man art in here, and Michael Cho’s work is no exception.
Now, Michael Cho has done lots of ‘evergreen’ work for Marvel: covers and pieces that are simple and iconic, without any complicated context. And that shines here: there’s nothing more than striking lighting, negative space, and the understated compositional genius of Scott’s size amidst his shadow. I love these colors, expression, pose: it screams classic in every way but with a clean, modern sensibility.
Now, the question would be how exactly to make it work with Snap’s templating, with card names sitting at the bottom (where Scott is mostly here). I’d be loath to tamper with any composition here— but to any Second Dinner employees reading, I think any effort to make this piece work would be worth it.
The Chips Are Down For Ant-Man
Original Cover: The Astonishing Ant-Man (2015) #8
Artist: Julian Totino Tedesco
And guess what: it’s a hat trick! My last pick is from this series as well, if only to spotlight another absolute favorite artist of mine: Julian Totino Tedesco, who’s undoubtedly one of the best talents in comics right now. Tedesco’s got an almost Norman Rockwell-esque sense for expressive, animated realism, which makes his work in outlandish superhero comics that much more impressive: here, we’ve got all the hallmarks of Ant-Man cover like small objects and physical humor and ants (ANTS), but elevated by Tedesco’s painterly style, expression work, and compositional eye. And where other pieces sometimes feel like you might need to compromise the piece to make the Snap formatting work, I think there’s a terrific opportunity for the 3D parallax effect to complement Ant-Man hiding behind those poker chips in the foreground.
This won’t be the last time I gush about Tedesco’s work, so brace yourselves for the future. For now, enjoy a wonderful Ant-Man piece that 100% deserves to be in this game.
But That’s Just My Opinion
But that’s just my opinion, yadda yadda. And you know what? It’s hard to go wrong here: Scott (and Hank) have some wonderful work already in Snap and the comics backlog to draw on for some great variants! The character lends itself to fun, great compositions. And I think that for a hero so well catapulted into the mainstream by Paul Rudd and the MCU, he’s still an underdog: but even if there’s not an iconic cover that everyone can recall, there’s plenty of art out there that needs to make its way to Snap.
So, without anything else to say…
Ants!
Ants!
A N T-M A N